Guide to the Julian Abele Reference Collection, 1974-2009

Julian Abele was the chief designer for
Horace Trumbauer's architectural firm in Philadelphia, PA. He designed the buildings for the
Duke University campus, including Duke Chapel. The reference collection includes articles,
correspondence, clippings, printed and genealogical material, and other files related to
Abele.

The Julian Abele reference collection includes articles, correspondence, clippings, printed
and genealogical material, and other files related to Julian Abele, his work, his family,
and African American architects.

Access to the Collection

Collection is open for research.

Use & Permissions

Copyright for Official University records is held by Duke University; all other copyright
is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by
United States copyright law.

Julian Francis Abele was born in 1881 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the youngest of
eight children in a prominent African American family, and attended the Institute for
Colored Youth, Brown Preparatory School, and the Pennsylvania Museum and School of
Industrial Art before studying architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and the
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He was the first African American to graduate from the
University of Pennsylvania when he did so in 1902 at age 21.

In 1906, Abele began working as an assistant to the chief designer of the architecture firm
of Horace Trumbauer. In 1909, Abele became the chief designer. Around that time, he designed
a home for James Buchanan Duke in New York City. Duke was impressed with the Trumbauer
firm's work, and they were hired to design and oversee the building of West Campus when
Trinity College became Duke University in 1924.

The design and construction of Duke's campus was a massive undertaking, and Julian Abele
took the lead in much of the design work. As was common practice, his architectural drawings
were signed with the name of the firm of Horace Trumbauer and not his own name. He worked on
most of the Gothic style buildings on West Campus, including the Chapel, the library, the
football stadium, the gymnasium, the medical school, the hospital, and the school of
religion (now the Divinity School). He largely oversaw the work from Philadelphia over the
more than two decades he was involved with Duke's campus; although it is generally accepted
that he did not travel to Durham or the segregated South, some evidence exists to suggest he
may have visited the campus at one point. He worked on a library addition and signed a
drawing for Cameron Indoor Stadium after Trumbauer's death, as well as the Allen Building,
which was incomplete at the time of his death.

Abele designed and contributed to many buildings in the Classical and Beaux Arts styles,
including Harvard University's Widener Library, the Philadelphia Free Library, the
Philadelphia Museum of Art (in collaboration with the firm of Zantzinger, Borie, and
Medary), and the New York Evening Post building. The Great Depression took a toll on the
firm of Horace Trumbauer, which specialized in large, luxurious buildings and residences,
and when Trumbauer died in 1938, Abele and the remaining architect, William Frank, kept the
name of the firm to reduce uncertainty. However, Abele did begin signing his own name to his
drawings.

Julian Abele was close to his sister, Elizabeth Abele Cook, and she and her children lived
with him for a time in the 1910s and 1920s. Abele married Marguerite Bulle, a French
musician who immigrated to Philadelphia, in 1925, and the couple had three children: Julian
Junior, Marguerite Marie, and Nadia. Marguerite Marie died at the age of 5, and the Abeles
separated in 1933. In 1942, Julian Abele became a member of the American Institute of
Architects. He died in 1950 at the age of 68, of a heart attack.

Although evidence for Abele's involvement in the design and construction of Duke's West
Campus existed in the University Archives, including evidence that some University
administrators knew of his role and likely his race, his name was not generally known or
associated with the design for many years. During the time Abele worked on the design and
construction of the campus, Duke University was only open to whites, and Jim Crow laws
severely limited the rights and activities of African Americans in the South; if he did
visit the campus during that time, he would not have been welcome in many places. His
involvement in the work was acknowledged in several sources, but did not become widely known
in the Duke community until 1986. That year, students protesting Duke's investment in
apartheid South Africa built shanties in front of the Chapel. A student wrote to the
Chronicle to complain that the ugliness of the shanties "violates our rights as students to
a beautiful campus." Susan Cook, a Duke student and Julian Abele's great grand-niece, wrote
a response that claimed her great grand-uncle, as an African American and the designer of
the campus, would not have objected to the shanties as he was himself "a victim of
apartheid" in his own country. This letter brought Julian Abele's name to the attention of
the student body and many others who had not known of his existence and involvement in the
design and building of Duke, and in the years that followed his contribution has been
recognized and honored in a variety of ways. In 1987 the Black Graduate and Professional
Student Association began the Julian Abele Awards and Recognition Banquet and unveiled a
commissioned portrait of the architect. This portrait was hung in the foyer of the Allen
Building, the first of a black person at Duke. This portrait now hangs in the Gothic Reading
Room of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, a building Abele
designed.